When Wrongthink Becomes Workplace Harrassment

The EEOC wants to decide whether the Gadsden flag might be racist.

We are all well aware (or should be well aware) that we don't actually have "free speech" at our private workplaces. Employers can monitor employee communications and—for the sake of workplace harmony or customer relations—declare topics off subject or require employees to not curse up a storm or scream at people, et cetera, et cetera.

Inappropriate workplace speech can also constitute harassment and discrimination under federal law. Racist and sexist behavior in the workplace is forbidden and can get the employer into legal and financial hot water.

So, what happens when people decide certain symbols and political positions are themselves inherently racist and create a hostile work environment? Here's what the culture of offense has led us to. As Eugene Volokh explains over at his blog hosted by The Washington Post, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is handling a complaint by a worker at a private employer who believes the Gadsden flag with the "Don't Tread on Me" text is racist. Therefore the employee has determined that an employee wearing a hat with the Gadsden flag insignia is racial harassment.

Volokh notes that the EEOC has already ruled that wearing the Confederate flag in the workplace could potentially constitute harassment and could be punishable under federal law. The EEOC's determination is disconcerting because it acknowledges that no, the Gadsden flag is not inherently racist, and then tosses in a very significant "but still":

Complainant maintains that the Gadsden Flag is a "historical indicator of white resentment against blacks stemming largely from the Tea Party." He notes that the Vice President of the International Association of Black Professional Firefighters cited the Gadsden Flag as the equivalent of the Confederate Battle Flag when he successfully had it removed from a New Haven, Connecticut fire department flagpole.

After a thorough review of the record, it is clear that the Gadsden Flag originated in the Revolutionary War in a non-racial context. Moreover, it is clear that the flag and its slogan have been used to express various non-racial sentiments, such as when it is used in the modern Tea Party political movement, guns rights activism, patriotic displays, and by the military.

However, whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts. For example, in June 2014, assailants with connections to white supremacist groups draped the bodies of two murdered police officers with the Gadsden flag during their Las Vegas, Nevada shooting spree. …

In light of the ambiguity in the current meaning of this symbol, we find that Complainant's claim must be investigated to determine the specific context in which C1 displayed the symbol in the workplace.

So this puts the EEOC in the position where it's claiming the authority to police what sort of political symbols are permitted in the workplace depending on how much racists might have corrupted them.

This puts workplaces in the position of having to try to figure out whether its employees will interpret political speech as racist or sexist harassment. As such, the matter becomes much less about employers setting rules for appropriate workplace speech and instead being pressured to censor it in order to avoid federal intervention. Volokh notes:

Let's think about how this plays out in the workplace. Imagine that you are a reasonable employer. You don't want to restrict employee speech any more than is necessary, but you also don't want to face the risk of legal liability for allowing speech that the government might label "harassing." An employee comes to you, complaining that a coworker's wearing a "Don't Tread on Me" cap — or having an "All Lives Matter" bumper sticker on a car parked in the employee lot, or "Stop Illegal Immigration" sign on the coworker's cubicle wall — constitutes legally actionable "hostile environment harassment," in violation of federal employment law. The employee claims that in "the specific context" (perhaps based on what has been in the news, or based on what other employees have been saying in lunchroom conversations), this speech is "racially tinged" or "racially insensitive."

Would you feel pressured, by the risk of a lawsuit and of liability, into suppressing speech that expresses such viewpoints? Or would you say, "Nope, I'm not worried about the possibility of liability, I'll let my employees keep talking"? (Again, the question isn't what you may do as a matter of your own judgment about how you would control a private workplace; the question is whether the government is pressuring you to suppress speech that conveys certain viewpoints.)

Furthermore, given a presidential campaign tinged with racial and ethnic animus, Volokh worries that a worker showing support for Donald Trump, whether through bumper stickers or speech, could create a workplace liability. It's not unusual for workplaces to forbid campaign signs or other partisan symbols for the reason of maintaining workplace harmony. But here, the EEOC is giving the suggestion that political positions and endorsements that an employee feels are racist could result in a federal discrimination or harassment claim. And thus, the federal government is able to push political censorship into private work environments.

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I was in a bar in Colorado with my hat folded and set on a seat next to me. An old guy came in and did the same. I told him how nobody does that anymore. He said, “Military, you?” I replied, “Nope, mom with a strong pimp hand.”

That may be true, but with so short a comment, you can rest assured it’s for the entirely wrong reason. Ask him to amplify and I’m sure it’s for some batshit crazy reason that will make you want to set yourself on fire.

What’s really sad is this entire exercise by the EEOC is a blatant violation of the First Amendment that we have become so habituated to that we barely even notice it. Even though this article was tagged as a First Amendment article, it is not mentioned by name at all, and it basically assumes that the EEOC’s authority to police speech in the workplace is legitimate, if being abused in this case.

Though it’s always fun to have a reason to educate people, particularly lefties, on where the “falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic” standard originally came from. Once they learn it was an attempt to shut up socialists, they tend to pipe down.

A friend of mine has a saying: It’s always easy to have an opinion on something you don’t know anything about.

The article also doesn’t explicitly say that censoring political speech is bad,

Did you actually read the piece, Hugh?

Workplace harassment law has become a content-based, viewpoint-based speech restriction, including on core political speech. A pretty serious First Amendment problem, I think, for reasons I discuss in more detail here ….[jumping to “here”] The First Amendment, I have argued, cannot tolerate laws that ban the exposure of certain “unacceptable” viewpoints on certain political issues — such as religion, affirmative action, or the Equal Rights Amendment.

Free speech often exacts a high price. It has forced us to tolerate speech that urges revolution, that undermines the nation’s war effort, or that advocates what some see as immoral and dangerous personal behavior. Much of this speech, like much bigoted speech in the workplace, is material that many think valueless, and that many wish didn’t exist. Still, even such speech must be protected because the price the alternative exacts — the power of the government to impose an orthodoxy of speech and thought, or to cleanse public discourse of ideas it finds dangerous and threatening — is even higher. .

I was trying to decide if banning fried chicken and collard greens was being tolerant or being a racist. I realized the solution would be to have two lunchrooms. One where the tolerant people eat and another where people are free to eat fried chicken and collard greens.

In a just world the righteous course of action would be to fire the hypersensitive snowflake on the spot. But of course the EEOC will come after you for that too. Heads or tails the SJW will win eventually when the govt is involved.

Anyone ponder why an organization named International Association of Black Professional Firefighters isn’t racist? It seems to most certainly BE racist. And has there been such a gross historical pogrom against black fire fighters that necessitated its existence? In short, another shake down artist making trouble to justify his existence.

Perhaps part of the upside that everything is falling apart, Shit like this is going to be settled up one way or another. Let the victor write the history books, but at least the absurdity will be gone.

So if an African American has the old red-green-black flag in their their office or on a Bob Marley shirt on casual Friday, and since that flag has at times been loosely associated with/appropriated by Black Power groups advocating violence against whites, does that get banned too? What about a black guy wearing a bowtie, since you know, those Nation of Islam guys like bowties, and they believe whites were created by an evil black scientist to torment blacks. Can we get bowties banned?

While I’m willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to this one guy, this could easily be a veiled attempt to suppress disfavored political speech. I have Gadsden flag license plates and I’m sympathetic to Black Lives Matter. Lots of libertarians use the Gadsden flag with no racial connotation, and lots of leftists would love to suppress political speech of a non-racial nature just because they can. I refuse to be shamed for displaying libertarian symbols just because some assholes have decided to adopted those symbols to mean something I’m against.

You start playing that game and very quickly it will become a game of attempting to ban other people’s symbols, which will make it impossible to communicate solidarity, which is the point. The left doesn’t want people with shared minority political views to be able to communicate solidarity with one-another. And that doesn’t just include racists.

You start playing that game and very quickly it will become a game of attempting to ban other people’s symbols

Whaddaya mean “start”? It’s been going on, and it will continue to go on as long as people are offended by symbols. And words. The swastika was co-opted by the nazis. Now it can never be depicted in any other context.

Unfortunately we’re only a few short years from publicly saying you’re an “individualist” will be forbidden. It is already so deeply wound into the racist narrative, it’s only a precedent away from falling into the unallowed column. Yes, we’ve gone that far – and still sliding with plenty of inertia – in that direction. All part of the “this isn’t going to end well” end of the pool.

It may as well be. “Colorblind” is now racist, our former attorney general even said so. Judging people not according to their race is racist. Not according to their sex is sexist. Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.

i get Paid Over ?80 per hour working from home with 2 kids at house. I never thought I would be able to do it but my best friend earns over ?9185 a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless.

However, whatever the historic origins and meaning of the symbol, it also has since been sometimes interpreted to convey….

This is the same muddled thinking that our EE Officer uses to describe harassment, i.e., if someone perceives something as harassment, regardless of the intent, then it is harassment. By this logic, I could claim that I am being harassed by the EE Officer because I perceive her insane pronouncements of political correctness as an attempt to drive me insane (which effect they are indeed definitely having).

They left an out for “this person is objectively mentally ill” so that they don’t have to put in rules banning button-down collars as racially offensive.

But the standard is pretty much only in the eye of the (enforcing body) beholder. So good luck if you ever stand accused.

I did chance to stand accused of “hostile environment” harrassment once in such a situation. My secretary initiated a conversation with a couple of us about a news show on PBS the night before about middle school kids and sex. In the course of the conversation we talked about our daughters and how we were going to handle it. I mentioned that with good nutrition these days, girls are entering puberty much earlier than they used to. My neice got her period at eight. (!) With the upshot being that you couldn’t delay having “the talk” these days.

Well, she found that offensive and reported it to HR. Despite this being her topic. Despite my having given her a job and paid for her night classes and helped her in obtaining new skills on the job and driven her and her daughter to the doctor when her car broke down.

Rather than the boiler plate mea-culpa that is the normal way out, I told HR and our general council that I’d take my version to court and would stand on principle on this one. Then I thanked them for their time and walked out. I never heard another word about it. But it was telling that HR didn’t feel it was possible to tell her to get bent.

So what? She’s a protected class, so any hint of a retribution, even spilling coffee on some of her paperwork, just serves to set her up for another complaint or even a suit. And at that point, the boss has already been accused of wrongdoing, much like with criminal court where past arrests without convictions is still implicitly seen as evidence of criminal behavior.

I propose a much more in-your-face direct challenge to this policy. File objections to displays of support for the DNC and its candidates en mas. Every racist law of the Jim Crow era was passed and enforced by Democrat lawmakers. Every klansman donning a hood in the era of lynching was a member of the Democrat party. Every government official denying a black person the right to vote at a polling place during Jim Crow was a Democrat.

So all of those Hillary ’16 bumper stickers are inherently racist, by this standard. Even better, Obama bumper stickers and paraphanalia are inherently racist, because despite his personal race or even his personal politics, he is the standard bearer for the DNC.

In light of the ambiguity in the current meaning of this symbol, we find that Complainant’s claim must be investigated to determine the specific context in which C1 displayed the symbol in the workplace.

They pull in a couple of weak examples for the Gadsden flag. I’m quite certain that we could come up with a couple of hundred examples for the DNC that are much stronger than those.

Yeah, I know. Nobody says they have to be consistent in their theology. Plus, everyone running the department is a democrat, so that ain’t happening. But still…. it would be deliciously ironic.

I’ll go you one better. The Gadsden’s that I occassionally see at work are on people private cars parked in the lot. Contrast that with the Obumah or Hillarity stickers I’ve seen on office bulletin boards or door inside the buildings.